WASHINGTON — For months, Mark Wagner stuck by John McCain, even as the economy stalled and other Americans came to blame Republican leadership. Then, about three weeks ago, the deepening economic downturn pushed him to reconsider.
Now, the Florida salesman and staunch Republican has abandoned the GOP ticket. Sarah Palin, he thinks, looks under-equipped to be vice president. And McCain, he says, displayed an unsteady response to what may be a global economic depression.
The financial crisis has turned the last three weeks into a crucial and possibly decisive period in the presidential contest -- a time when many Americans have taken a new look at each candidate and then moved toward Democrat Barack Obama.
Like a wave, the crisis has washed over other factors in a contest that had seemed to be a dead heat, moving enough voters to give the senator from Illinois a consistent lead in polls nationwide and in key battleground states, including Florida, Virginia and Ohio, where President Bush secured his reelection four years ago.
Republican officials in several states say they fear voters have judged McCain and Palin harshly in how they reacted to the financial downturn. Obama, meanwhile, now looks like an acceptable alternative to many voters who had been hesitant to pull the lever for him because of concerns about his untraditional background and relatively recent appearance in national affairs.
"If you looked at some of the decisions that Obama's made, and the consistency and levelness that he's had in these trying times over the past few weeks, in my opinion he's blown McCain away," said Wagner, 47, of suburban Tampa.
In addition, Wagner disapproves of Palin's refusal to cooperate with a state legislative investigation that found she had abused her power as Alaska governor, and he calls McCain's recent attacks on Obama's character and past associations "disgusting."
"McCain was supposed to be the steady hand with experience," he said.
Some Republicans report hearing of similar conversions in Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina, and they fear that the change is irreversible. Voters who have been blaming Bush and Republicans in general for the financial crisis now seem to be tying it around McCain's neck as well.
Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, said he was looking at an "Obama tide" in his district and wondering about his own reelection: "Can I withstand a firestorm?"
